The editor of the Daily Telegraph has broken his silence over MPs' expenses, defending his paper's coverage and accusing the House of Commons of having lost its "moral authority" long before the scandal began.

Will Lewis, speaking publicly for the first time since the Daily Telegraph ran the first of its MPs' expenses exclusives early last month, poured scorn on suggestions that his paper had irreparably damaged parliament and democracy by triggering the scandal with publication over the past two months of the unedited details of MPs' expenses dating back to 2004.

"It is going to open up parliament to a whole new generation of people who understand what it means to be a representative of British citizens," he said.

Lewis, who is also editor-in-chief of Telegraph Media Group, has seen his reputation greatly enhanced by the string of exclusives.

He went on to criticise the work of the Commons, saying "bad laws" were being created by people who "we knew to be inadequate".

Lewis said the clearout of parliament in the wake of the exposure of MPs' expenses was "undeniably a good thing for the United Kingdom".

The Telegraph's sustained coverage led to the resignation of several MPs, including the Speaker, Michael Martin, and prompted major government reforms.

"That place has lost its moral authority … it lost it years ago. The incoherence of the avalanche of bad laws being passed by what we now know to be bad people," Lewis said.

"People in this country have had enough of that. And what has really gone on as a result of this story is that people have said no more. We want that place cleared out and start again."

Lewis denied that his paper's detailed examination of expenses would put off talented people from entering politics. "Why did we do this? It's because they [MPs] didn't want you to see it. So, this is not my fault, I'm the messenger who just happened to get this stuff and deliver it to people who should have been told this by the MPs themselves," he said.

"This story wouldn't have had the impact it had if it hadn't followed quite a few years of people putting up with bad laws being thrown at us by people who we knew to be inadequate.

"It's almost like this story lit a fire that was set to start anyway – it couldn't have had the impact it had just as a story in its own right."

Telegraph Media Group has repeatedly refused to confirm or deny whether it paid for the information, but most rivals assume that it has, estimating that the paper paid between £70,000 to £150,000.

A dedicated Telegraph Media Group team of about 25 journalists has been working for weeks on the stories in the publisher's head office in Victoria in central London, rather than the gossipy parliamentary lobby.